' Med Friend


MEDFRIEND 2012

Modeling Sediment Transport in Hydrological Watersheds and Rivers

International Conference, November 14-16, 2012, Istanbul, Turkey

Objective

Due to its great importance of soil erosion from hillslopes in hydrological watersheds and rivers, it has been decided to organize MEDFRIEND2012: International Conference Sediment Transport Modeling in Hydrological Watersheds and Rivers between November 14-16, 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey. The general topic of the conference has been sediment transport modeling in hydrological watersheds and rivers knowing that erosion and sediment transport is a major problem in Mediterranean and semi-arid countries.

Any topic related to the modeling sediment transport has been the issue of the Conference. Some sub-topics were as follows:

  • conceptual and numerical basis and tools of modeling useful in the area of sediment transports
  • time and space scale issues in modeling of sediment transport
  • socio-economic and other "non conventional" data input in modeling of sediment transports
  • spatial and GIS approach of modeling of sediment transport

    • Although all these are widely studied topics, modeling sediment transport is a domain with less specific and largely used knowledge. Thus the general objective of the MEDFRIEND2012 is to gather not only regional but also worldwide researchers and practitioners working on this topic at different scales of time and space, in order to identify and compare tools and methodologies, and to edit the main contributions as a set of papers to give future studies a good overview. With this, it was aimed to accommodate any contribution on the topic from all around the world such that it can be made sure that the Conference covered the up-to-date science and practice of sediment transport.

    Interest and Participation to the Conference

    The MEFRIEND2012 Conference with such important topic has attracted a great interest from all over the world; 163 abstracts were submitted. Among these abstracts, 103 contributions were finally programmed and published in the pre-published Conference Proceedings, from 32 countries all over five continents: Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America. There were 55 oral presentations and 48 poster. A total of 99 participants registered.

    At the beginning of the Conference, after the opening ceremony, an opening lecture of one hour was given by Prof. Axel Bronstert (University of Potsdam, Germany). Also five more keynote speeches each half an hour were made during the Conference.

    Supports

  • Hosting the FRIEND initiative since the last 25 years, Division of Water Sciences in UNESCO financially supported the Conference.

  • IRD and HSM, France, and French Missions in Morocco and Tunisia provided considerable financial and logistic supports to participants, from African countries, to attend the Conference.

  • The National Superior School of Hydraulics (ENSH) invested a large amount of money to allow 6 researchers to join the meeting. ENSH is also the Institution to which belongs Prof. Benina Touaibia, who was coordinator of the theme "Erosion and solid transport" of MEDFRIEND since a decade.

  • Istanbul Technical University has been very generous in providing both finance and logistics among which a domain for the Conference website can be mentioned.

  • TUBITAK (the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey) financed the printing materials and participation of young researchers from Turkey.

  • The Istanbul Branch of Chamber of Civil Engineers of Turkey (TMMOB-IMO) contributed to the social events of the Conference.

  • IAHS (International Association of Hydrological Sciences) advertised the Conference in their website.

  • SKATMK (Turkish National Committee on Water Pollution Research and Control) helped us in using their logistics for financial issues.

    • Bilingual Conference

    Considering the potential interest from North African countries (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco as members of MEDFRIEND) and also that those participants have French as their working language, the Conference was organized in two languages (French and English). Simultaneous translation was made available for the participants. 12 out of 55 (22%) oral presentations and 18 out of 48 (38%) poster presentations were submitted in French; 30 out of 103 (approximately 30%) in total.

    All the slides of the presentations are available from the menu "Event" and "Istanbul 2012 Slides"

    Outcomes of the conference

    1. Scientific / Technical Outcomes

    Presentations were made at high scientific and technical levels. They consisted of very recent studies made at laboratories or observed at field. Also high level theoretical models were presented. The three days during the Conference were full of fruitful and productive discussions. Participants were all very happy with the organization. We have already positive feedback by emails from the participants that they enjoyed their time during the Conference.

    2. Proceedings / Journal papers

    103 full papers and abstracts were published in the Conference Proceedings made of 670 pages. Following journals were contacted already for publication of the revised / extended versions of presentations of the Conference. Participants will be able to submit their full-papers to these journals for a possible publication after a further review process. 3

  • (a) Journal of Arid Lands (ISI indexed)
  • (b) La Houille Blanche (ISI and SCOPUS indexed)
  • (c) Journal of Urban and Environmental Engineering (SCOPUS indexed)
  • (d) Le Journal de l´Eau et de l´Environnement (ENSH Blida, Algeria)
  • (e) Ecopersia International Journal (Iran)

    • The material of the conference will be given as soon as possible to the MEDFRIEND Website manager, Mrs Claudine Dieulin, from IRD Morocco: pictures, ppt files, papers at a very small format.

    3. FRIEND-related [Organizational / Administrative] outcomes

    We understood that the FRIEND Community established by UNESCO is a very good way to contribute science at different topics for different regions in the world. It is a very FRIENDly way to bring FRIENDs together from different FRIEND regions. Because we have seen that the Conference has been a good link not only between the MEDFRIEND Community (Mediterranean region) but also between participants from other continents. We concluded so because of the great interest shown by the participants coming outside the Mediterranean region. Therefore, the FRIEND initiative must continue and be enlarged.

    During the gala diner, Prof. Touaibia passed the coordination of the theme "Erosion and solid transport" to Prof. Hakoy. (Picture below, from right to left: Prof H. Aksoy, new research theme coordinator "Erosion and solid transport" for MEDFRIEND; Prof B. Touaibia, former coordinator of this theme; G. Mahe, MEDFRIEND Regional coordinator)